The Summertime Girls

by Laura Hankin

  “Did you know I had a sister?” he finally said. She shook her head. “Yeah, I didn’t think you did. I don’t know if you would’ve ever met her. She was older, and she didn’t spend much time at the store because she hated it.”

  “Why would she hate Mulberry’s?”

  “I don’t know. Because she was a cool teenage girl and cool teenage girls don’t hang out with their parents in hardware stores, probably. But I thought she was incredible. I was just starting to get into that awkward middle school phase, and she was already in high school and had friends and a driver’s license. She didn’t really want to spend time with her younger brother, but sometimes, if I was lucky, she’d drive me home from soccer practice and we’d listen to show tunes in the car, which she made me swear never to tell anyone. Because, she said, the musical theater kids were nerds and she wasn’t one of them, she just wanted to listen to really happy songs with dance breaks sometimes. She knew all the words, though, and could sing all the high notes. And then one night, when I’d just started sixth grade and she was a junior in high school, she drove home drunk from a party, crashed into a tree, and died.”

  Suddenly, she felt more sober. A lot of things made sense to her now. Why Owen had spent every day after school at the store with his parents. Why his father went six months without smiling. “Oh no,” she said. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.”

  “Yeah, my parents don’t ever really talk about it. No one does. But for a long time after that, whenever any of my friends complained about something, it made me mad, you know? Like, oh no, your dog died. Big deal, your dog’s not a person. My sister died. That’s worse.”

  “Well, it is worse. You were right.”

  “Yeah, but you can’t live your life like that. Everyone has their own crap to deal with, and you can’t get wrapped up in judging other people’s and saying that yours is crappier, even though maybe it is. ’Cause then you’re just staring at crap all the time, and there are lots of better things to look at. It’s like . . . like forcing yourself to stay at the dump instead of going to swim in the pond.”

  She could have told him that he was right, that she was tired of looking at everything that was bad, but instead she said, “I didn’t realize you knew everything,” and walked out of the car into Grandma Stella’s house without looking back. She vomited in the toilet and passed out, curled up tightly, in one corner of her otherwise-empty bed.

  NINETEEN

  Ally sat in the passenger seat of Nick’s car as they headed toward the highway that would take her away from Britton Hills.

  “Thanks for coming to pick me up,” she said.

  He shrugged. “Wasn’t doing anything else, so . . .” His car was nicer than she’d expected. She’d pictured something beat-up, with crumpled take-out wrappers strewn about, and CD cases all over the floor. But this car smelled like someone had recently vacuumed it. It looked like a family car, once the kids had grown past the car-seat phase. She wondered if his wife cleaned the car, and then she wondered what his wife was like.

  And then she felt weird being in the car at all, so she pulled out her phone. She planned to send Tom an e-mail, to tell him that she was coming home early, but a message from him already waited in her inbox.

  Hey Al,

  So, short version of a long story: I mentioned to my boss here that I had a final-round interview elsewhere, and he offered me a raise I couldn’t turn down. Looks like I’ll be staying in Portland after all for the time being. Rain check on the coffee? I’ll let you know next time I make it out to NYC, and I hope you know that you’ll always have a place to stay if you ever want to explore Oregon’s hipster wonderland.

  Best,

  Tom

  Ally shoved her phone back into her bag and put her hand over her mouth. She was such an idiot. “Coffee” really had just meant coffee, not “We’re going to get back together and live a romantic dream life.” She slumped down in her seat and tried not to cry. She’d get to the airport. She’d find a chair and sleep on it for a few hours, and then she’d fly away from all this.

  When she finally looked over at Nick, he was looking back at her.

  “You look a lot less happy than when I saw you earlier tonight,” he said. “You okay?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You still drunk?”

  “Yeah. Whiskey after wine is not the best idea.”

  “So, why you leaving?”

  She sighed. “Beth is being such a bitch. I can’t stay with her anymore, and she doesn’t want me to stay, anyway.”

  “What’s she doing?”

  “She’s just being so holier-than-thou. Nothing I do is good enough for her.”

  “Yeah, she seemed a little uptight. When you guys came to the store tonight, I mean. I could see how that would get really fucking annoying.”

  Ally fought off a weird urge to defend Beth from this person who barely even knew her. “Besides, my mom and her fiancé are in New York right now, and they really want me to come back. I have family responsibilities too. So it makes sense that I should go. And I’ve been up here for almost a week. That’s a long time.”

  “Yeah, especially for Britton Hills.”

  “Yeah.” She nodded, and then reconsidered. “Well, no,” she said. “I love it here, actually. I’m going to miss it.”

  “You’ll probably come back sometime, right?”

  “Probably not. My friend’s grandmother won’t be here anymore. Plus, this is a me-and-Beth place, and I don’t think there is a me-and-Beth anymore. Not after tonight.” She could see the entrance ramp for the highway up ahead, getting closer and closer. Suddenly she felt like she couldn’t get on it, not yet. “Wait a minute,” she said. “Can we—can we stop?”

  “Shit, what?” He hit the brakes and they both bounced forward against their seat belts.

  “Sorry! Sorry, sorry, sorry. I just—I know this is silly, but could we drive through the center of town before we get on the highway? I know I’m already inconveniencing you, but I’d really like to look at it one more time. Say good-bye, and all that. It’s ridiculous, I know.”

  He looked at her in disbelief. “Really?”

  “Never mind. Forget it. It’s stupid. Let’s just go.”

  “No, it’s okay, sure, we can,” he said.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah,” he said, and turned the car at the next intersection. He put on an old Smiths CD and drove slowly down the town’s main street, and she pressed her nose to the window, looking at all the shops. When he reached the harbor, she got out and stood, looking at the water, pulling her sweater tightly around her. She picked up a stone and tried to skip it, but it sank after one little jump.

  “Okay, I’m ready,” she said.

  They pulled into the airport’s parking lot a little under an hour later, no traffic to contend with. Nick turned off the ignition. Without the hum of the motor, everything felt eerie and deserted. The terminal glowed faintly.

  “Thank you again,” she said.

  “No problem.”

  “For everything, I mean. It was really nice of you to drive me here, but also for all the music stuff. I’d sort of given up on it. I thought I was terrible, and had basically resolved to never, ever do it again.”

  “You’re not terrible.”

  “Thank you.” She gave a little laugh. A modest, dismissive laugh.

  “I mean it,” Nick said. “You laughed that off, but you shouldn’t. Your voice is really pretty, and the stuff you write has a lot of potential. It’s a little Joni Mitchell–ish.”

  “Thank you,” Ally said. She didn’t laugh this time, just looked at him straight on and accepted his compliment.

  He looked away first. “I’m sorry we won’t get to jam anymore.”

  “I know,” she said. It felt so good, after this night, to have someone say nice things to her, nice
things about her. She wanted more. The hole Beth had blasted in her self-esteem stretched way down toward the core of the Earth. “Let me know if you’re ever in New York, or anything.”

  “Will do.”

  Neither one of them said anything, but she didn’t get out of the car. She heard Beth’s voice in her ear. Ally! it said. Remove yourself from this situation right now! Walk out of this car and don’t look back. But she ignored it. She’d spent the entirety of the last week trying to do what Beth wanted, and that hadn’t worked out for her. Nick clenched and unclenched the steering wheel, then drummed on it a little bit. She twisted her hair into a coil and brushed it against her cheek, and tried to think of something else to say. She felt an urge to babble, to stave off the loaded silence, but nothing came to mind.

  Finally, after a minute of them neither speaking nor looking at each other, she reached down to gather her shoulder bag from where she’d tossed it at her feet. “All right. Good-bye,” she said as she pulled the bag up to her lap. She turned to give him one more smile.

  “Wait,” he said, and launched himself over the emergency brake that separated them. His lips met hers urgently, and his stubble scratched at her cheek. He pulled her into him like he wanted to forget, and she wanted to forget too, so she let him. The emergency brake pressed awkwardly against her stomach, so she climbed over it and onto his lap, straddling him. Her sundress rode up around her legs, and he slid his hands beneath it to run up her thighs. She ran her fingers through his hair. It was messy like Tom’s had always been, and for a brief second, she imagined that he actually was Tom, that she and Tom were doing what they’d done hundreds of times before and what she’d thought they’d be able to do again soon, and that everything was all right.

  Whenever thoughts of Beth came to her mind, she kissed Nick harder. She banished Beth’s disapproving face by licking his ear and seeing how loudly she could make him breathe. (The answer—very loudly, in a slow-motion gasp.) He pushed the straps of her dress down over her shoulders roughly until the dress bunched around her waist. She could feel him, hard, underneath her.

  “God, you’re beautiful,” he whispered, and so she undid the buckle on his belt. She lifted herself up, sitting back against the steering wheel, and he pulled his pants to his knees, then pulled her back into him. They rubbed against each other, separated only by underwear, and she thought how nice it would feel to have him inside her, filling her up, concentrating everything she thought and felt into the act of sex itself. He wanted her, and she wanted him. It would be so simple to give in to that. His hand crept inside her underwear and played with the wetness he found there.

  “I brought a condom,” he said.

  And something in the fact that he’d come into the night prepared for her to say yes to this selfish thing they were doing broke her heart. Because if he’d expected this of her, that she’d have sex with him despite his vows, despite his wife, just because she wanted to, then maybe Beth’s accusations weren’t just paranoia and prudishness. If he’d expected this of her, maybe he’d seen the same selfishness Beth had.

  “I—I have to go,” she said, jutting back against the steering wheel again and accidentally honking the horn.

  “What?” The look of disbelief on his face might have been comical in another circumstance. She yanked her dress back up over her breasts and climbed back to the passenger side of the car.

  “I have to catch my plane.”

  “I thought you said it didn’t take off until nine A.M.,” he said, reaching for her. She evaded his grasp and started to gather up her things.

  “We shouldn’t. And I’m drunk. And—”

  “Fuck those excuses. Come on.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said, stumbling out of the car, and opening up the door to the backseat to grab her suitcase and guitar.

  “Ally, what are you doing?” he called out after her. “Come back. You shouldn’t be here all by yourself.”

  “And you shouldn’t be here at all. Go home to your wife,” she said, and his face changed from annoyance to anger. She couldn’t tell how much of it was directed at her, and how much he had reserved for himself.

  “Fine,” he said. He started the car up again and sped out onto the main road. She watched him recede from view, her stomach curdling as she realized what she’d done. She’d crossed a barrier she had never expected to cross. Ally Morris, seducer of married men. Shit. Shit. She wasn’t even that drunk anymore. The wine and whiskey had mostly worn off on the ride to the airport, and now that desire had faded, she was left with just a numb disgust. It made her want to crawl inside her suitcase and zip the zipper all the way up, so that she could just stay in that tiny dark space forever.

  But, no, she hadn’t seduced him. He was just as much to blame as she was. Not just as much, more so. She hadn’t taken any vows.

  She wheeled her suitcase through the automatic doors of the terminal. The only person around was a wizened, half-asleep security guard, and he nodded a silent assent when she said, “I didn’t want to miss my flight. Morning traffic. Can I sleep here?”

  She curled up into the fetal position on a hard metal chair and closed her eyes, but sleep eluded her. Sleep said, You don’t deserve me right now. She felt like she’d just chugged a cup of coffee dangerously fast, before it had gotten a chance to cool down. So she walked back and forth from one end of the terminal to the other, her guitar nestled on her back, wheeling her suitcase behind her, her energy jostling uncomfortably with her fatigue. The old man watched her silently, disapproving, and she frowned at him. Then she pulled out her phone to see if anyone had sent her a message or an e-mail. Maybe Nick had texted her. (FYI, my wife and I just got divorced! So what you did wasn’t bad.) But he hadn’t. She stared at the screen, empty except for the time (3:04 A.M.). She’d changed the background wallpaper just yesterday to a picture of her and Beth trying on the gigantic hats at Eloise’s. They were laughing, half looking at the camera and half convulsing in giggles, their decorated heads leaning toward each other till they almost touched.

  She deleted the picture, leaving the background blank. She didn’t want to think about Beth ever again. She texted Gabby—Coming home early.—and her mom—Should be back at my apartment by noon. Excited to see you! She typed out a text to Tom too—I miss you—and stared at it for a little while before erasing it. Then she went back to her metal chair, sat down, and waited for sleep.

  TWENTY

  The sun pounced repeatedly on Beth’s face, and she cracked open her eyes. Oh, her mouth tasted bad. Stretching it open to yawn took real effort, as did turning to look at the empty pillow where Ally’s head had lain every other morning.

  She didn’t think she’d ever been this hungover. She cringed as memories of last night swam into her mind—yelling at Ally, throwing herself at Owen, treating him so unkindly when he’d told her a private, meaningful thing. She’d thought that too much alcohol was supposed to rub away details, but these memories were crystal-clear in their brutality.

  She’d been drunk, she told herself, as she pressed her hands into her forehead and tried in vain to massage away her headache. That was a valid excuse. Even as she said that, though, she knew it wasn’t true. Being drunk didn’t turn you into someone you weren’t. It just ripped away the checks and balances you normally imposed on yourself in order to act the way you were supposed to act.

  She needed to eat a big helping of something greasy. She also needed to take about five Advil, unscrew her head and replace it with one that didn’t hurt so much, and go back to last night so that she could do it all over again. But she’d start with the food. Her walk to the kitchen felt like a hike in the Everglades. She waded through the swamps of leftover alcohol in her body and reached the table, triumphant. The wood beckoned to her, so she put her head down on it and rested there. After a couple of minutes, she heard someone clomp urgently into the kitchen.

  “Sweetheart, what’s
going—”

  Beth lifted up her head blearily, and Grandma Stella gasped, her already worried face contorting itself into full-blown panic. She rushed over to the table, her flowered dressing gown swishing through the air, her hands fluttering with good intentions.

  “Are you all right? What’s the matter? Do you have the flu?”

  Beth shook her head, and then groaned. Too much movement. “I’m fine,” she murmured. “I just drank too much last night.”

  “Oh, that’s all? Phew. Happens to the best of us. Coffee? Tea?” When Beth nodded silently, she bustled over to the stove and put on a teapot. “Now what’s wrong with Ally?” Beth snorted, and Grandma Stella turned around. “I’ve been worried sick ever since I woke up and got her note this morning.”

  “Her note? What did she say?”

  “Just that she had to go back to New York and that she was sorry.”

  Typical, Beth thought. Of course she’d fly away and leave Grandma Stella to worry, rather than explaining. Of course she wouldn’t accept the blame. Suddenly, incredulous that she hadn’t thought about it before, she wondered how Ally had gotten to the airport, and worried that maybe she’d done something dangerous. She thought, I should check on her, just to make sure that she’s all right, but she pushed that impulse away.

  “Is she okay? Is it a health thing? Oh my goodness, someone in her family died. Oh no. Oh, poor Ally. That’s it, isn’t it? Is that what happened?” Grandma Stella was pressing on, staring at Beth intently. Beth had the opportunity here for a total ally, but somehow she couldn’t tell Grandma Stella the whole story.

  So instead, she said simply, “Her mom came up to NYC unexpectedly—you know how Marsha is—and she really wanted Ally to come back and see her.”

  Of course Grandma Stella was no fool. She possessed one of the finest BS-meters around. Her eyebrow began to make its well-traveled journey up her forehead. “And so she left in the middle of the night? Without saying good-bye to me?”